Use a case statement and glob to match the first character of $NEXTLINE,
instead of string splitting, which isn't portable.

Patch by Andrew Miller.

https://bugs.gentoo.org/528380

--- a/common/mkiconlinks.sh
+++ b/common/mkiconlinks.sh
@@ -16,8 +16,9 @@
 while [ ! -z "$NEXTLINE" ] ; do
 
 	# Skip lines beginning with '#'
-	if [ ! "${NEXTLINE:0:1}" == '#' ]; then
-		#Extract first field, minus its trailing colon
+	case "$NEXTLINE" in
+	\#*)	continue ;;
+	*)	#Extract first field, minus its trailing colon
 		ORIG_FILE=`echo $NEXTLINE | awk '/:/{print $1}' | sed -e 's/://'`
 
 		#Extract list of following fields
@@ -26,8 +27,8 @@
 		if [ ! -z "$LINKTO" ] ; then
 			echo "Creating symlinks to `pwd`/$ORIG_FILE"
 		fi
-
-	fi
+		;;
+	esac
 
 	#Link each pair in turn
 	for i in $LINKTO ; do